De La Soul Claims Tommy Boy Is Willing To Negotiate Streaming Deal If Group Signs Confidentiality Agreement
UPDATE #2: De La Soul now says Tommy Boy is willing to negotiate but first wants the rap group to sign a confidentiality agreement. Their response can be read below.
UPDATE: Tidal is showing its support to De La Soul. According to the rap trio, the streaming service "has decided not to stream our catalog until this matter has been resolved."
Read the original story below.
The news is bittersweet considering just how little money the group will see from their music now being available to stream and download.
De La Soul has shared a series of Instagram posts that began on Monday and continued into Tuesday centered around their music becoming available to stream and download through their old record label Tommy Boy Records. De La Soul released their first six albums through the record label.
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"Dear fans…just got off the phone with Tommy Boy Records…negotiations (or lack there of) to release our catalog on all streaming platforms..uh oh," the rap group wrote in the first post.
The rap trio then uploaded another post that read: "Dear fans...just got wind that Tommy Boy was not happy about our last post. Touché. We are not happy about releasing our catalog under such unbalanced, unfair terms."
The post came with the following caption: "For our fans to finally be able to stream and/or download our music will be a dream come true! The reality for De La...what an ugly greedy nightmare."
Since then, De La has put up another post revealing that their music from Tommy Boy will be released digitally but that they likely won't see any money from it.
"After 30 long years of good music and paying their debt to hip-hop, De La Soul unfortunately, will not taste the fruit of their labor. Your purchases will roughly go 90% Tommy Boy, 10% De La."
The group captioned the post with "Don't feed the Vultures, support and respect the culture," while encouraging fans to support their upcoming new albums with Pete Rock and DJ Premier.
It's unknown when the group's catalog will hit streaming services, as well as be available for download. But the news is absolutely bittersweet considering the circumstances.
Fans of the rap group have taken to Tommy Boy's Instagram account to criticize the label following De La's posts.
"Pathetic label...made your name off of De La Soul and other acts and you continue to rape them. There should be cool spot in hell waiting for you vultures. I'm definitely boycotting your bullshit label.....Shady ass scumbag! We're spreading the word like wildfire!" one user wrote.